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Cedar Mill man fires gun, bullet enters neighbor's apartment

Deputies learn no one was home, but a TV is destroyed by stray bullet

A Cedar Mill man practicing drawing his gun from its holster last week mistakenly fired a shot that went into a Michael Corleone poster before passing through an apartment wall and destroying his neighbor's flat-screen television.

Travis T. Hood, 27, was lodged in the Washington County Jail on charges of unlawful use of a weapon, first-degree criminal mischief and recklessly endangering

At about 2:51 p.m. May 11, Washington County sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call at Hood's apartment in the 8000 block of Southwest Barnes Road.

Hood called 911 and reported that his gun went off while he was cleaning it. He said that the bullet went through the wall, and he didn't know if anyone was home next door.

After deputies talked to Hood, they tried to contact someone inside his neighbor's apartment. No one came to the door, so they got a key from the manager and went in.

Deputies searched the apartment and learned that no one was home. They quickly found the hole in the wall where the bullet had entered the apartment and traced the trajectory to a 40-inch, flat-screen television on the opposite wall with a hole in the middle of the screen.

'Mr. Hood was cooperative and showed deputies where he had shot the wall in his apartment,' said Sgt. David Thompson, sheriff's office spokesman. 'He also admitted to them that he had not been cleaning his .357 Magnum when it went off.

'He had actually been practicing his draw and accidentally fired the gun when he drew it from the holster. He had been aiming at a poster on the wall when it happened.'

Hood also told deputies that he went to the neighbor's apartment and tried to get someone to come to the door.

'When no one answered, he feared that he had shot someone inside and called 911,' Thompson said. 'One of the deputies investigating the case said that if he had been sitting on the couch watching the TV in the victim's apartment, he would have likely been hit by the bullet.